Daily Reaction: 8 Years of PS3 – The Biggest Games, The Worst Disasters and The PS4 Countdown

May 17, 2013Written by Sebastian Moss

Seb: 2012

After such a strong few years of dominating the headlines with exclusives, Sony decided to take a little break, and instead closed down Zipper, Sony Liverpool and Sony BigBig. On the second party front, the beginning of the year saw Twisted Metal and Starhawk released, with the poor sales of each title leading to Sony cancelling PS-exclusive contracts with Eat.Sleep.Play and LightBox. But, with Christmas seeing Sony face off against Microsoft’s behemoth Halo 4, they pulled out the big guns: PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. The result was the downsizing of PSASBR’s SuperBot Entertainment and the cancelling of their exclusive contract for more PlayStation games. To make sure that Halo had no chance, Sony brought out LittleBigPlanet Karting forgetting that ModNation Racers was a thing. We also got Wonderbook, which doesn’t need a joke as it is one.

Plus, Sorcery was released at long last, with the PS Move-exclusive failing to make an impression on gamers to such a degree that its Wikipedia entry is shorter than this segment.

Probably aware that their lineup was a little lacking, the platform holder remembered the success of the Slim PS3 + price cut move from 2009, so they promptly released an even slimmer PS3 in September. At the same price.

Thankfully, 2012 was the year of the downloadable game. Floaty-hand-drug-trip Datura and this-contains-adult-themes Papo & Yo may not have been the best games, but they tried something commendably different. Telltale’s The Walking Dead blew people away, although an abundance of bugs stopped the ‘zombies and kids don’t mix’ story from being perfect. Journey, meanwhile, was perfect. And The Unfinished Swan had the unenviable task of following Journey.

Amid the usual fare of third party IP rehashes, including the vast, ambitious and samey Assassin’s Creed 3, the action-centric Hitman Absolution and the not-noire noire shooter Max Payne 3, were a few decent games.

Sleeping Dogs was a, *ahem*, sleeper hit, with the vibrant and surprisingly detailed game finally managing to have an enjoyable combat system in an open world title. The year’s other big game, Dishonored, managed to sell reasonably well, almost proving that consumers aren’t all stupid. Other notables include the criminally-underrated Spec Ops: The Line, the probably insane Far Cry 3, Dan’s GOTY Borderlands2 and Mass Effect 3. Ah, I should probably change that sentence’s ending before people complain.

Oh, and Activision released Call of Duty: Black Ops II.

Dan: 2013 So Far

With most of the year still to go before the PS3’s successor, the aptly named PS4, is released, Sony lined up a number of games to get you through the wait. With Studio Ghibli’s long awaited Ni No Kuni finally hitting US shores, and the return of Sly Cooper in Thieves in Time, gamers were finally wrapping up loose ends. Sadly, Dust 514 came out for free, and people still thought it cost too much, and Kratos returned in God of War: Ascension – *spoiler* he’s still mad.

The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct shuffled by, leaving only a bad smell, Aliens: Colonial Marines gave this writer an aneurism, and the Frankensteined abortion that was MGS Revengeance upset fans who couldn’t tell even Kojima wanted nothing to do with it.

Saving the year, BioShock Infinite pissed off idiots, and that makes everyone happy. Tomb Raider came back to show why girls with bows is my favorite new genre, Dead Space 3 is still full of the spooky, and Metro Last Light involved trains or something.

Seb: The Rest of 2013

As if the PS4 wasn’t enough to look forward to, we’ve got the incredible The Last of Us, the beautiful Beyond: Two Souls and the huge (but possibly GT5y) Gran Turismo 6, plus smaller titles like Puppeteer, Until Dawn, Rain and more. Crazy.

Oh, and Activision is going to release Call of Duty: Ghosts.

2025

The Last Guardian gets released.

Oh, and Activision releases Call of Duty.

How has this generation treated you so far? What was your most memorable PlayStation moment? Will we see another Call of Duty in 2026? What games stood out to you? Let us know in the comments below, email us at DailyReaction@PlayStationLifeStyle.net, or send us a tweet at Seb and Dan so we can cover your favorite game in the next 8 years.